The powerful story of a 22-year-old Dutch woman who changed her mind about euthanasia moments before she was to be killed is being shared to warn about one of the many dangers of legalized assisted death.
The woman, named Romy, suffered from clinical depression, eating disorders, and anorexia due to childhood abuse. Under Dutch law she qualified for euthanasia — after actively advocating for her own death for four years. In the days leading up to her death, she saw her coffin, received a tattoo to mark the day she intended to die, and bought her friends t-shirts with the phrase, “Everything sucks.” But as the physician was just about to put the lethal injection into her arm, he asked her one final question, as required by law — “Are you sure?” She is now sharing that that pivotal moment was a turning point, causing her to change her mind. Crying she told him, “No.”
Her journey was not completely over, as she later once again requested euthanasia. But by that point, her friends were able to get her much-needed help from a psychiatrist, and she received trauma therapy. Now, she says she wants “nothing more than to live.”
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“I don’t regret the journey. Because I’ve been so close to death, I see life as something valuable. It won’t always go well, but I now know there is light at the end of the tunnel,” she told Dutch outlet NRC.
Romy’s story is not unusual. Multiple studies have revealed that often people seek assisted suicide because, like Romy, they are depressed, hopeless, have no support, and are afraid of being a burden. When assisted death is legal, many of these people end up dying without ever receiving the help they truly need.
Those who are campaigning against a proposed bill that would legalize euthanasia in the UK are using Romy’s story as a cautionary tale.
“This is a chilling story that, if the bill is passed, could happen in the UK to those with severe eating disorders,” warned Professor Kevin Yuill of the group, Humanists Against Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia (HAASE). “More than 60 people — mostly young women — have received an assisted death for anorexia across the world, including in the United States, the model for the bill. It can happen here.”
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